


Nothing Like Fairy Tales

by Artemis1000



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, F/M, High Fantasy, Humor, Knights - Freeform, Mages, Mild Gore, Nature Magic, Pining, Size Difference, Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: The stories spoke of villainous mages that wielded lightning and made the blood boil in your veins, and the valiant knights who would defeat them. Maeve knew she was doing her part, she was valiant and had slain more men than any other knight in her lord's army. It was Rodric who was appropriately magey and yet all wrong. The nature mage was too gentle, too kind, and the cute little woodland creatures he talked to? No less than adding insult to injury. Yet the most vexing thing about him was that he did make her blood run hot with nothing more than a sweet, dimpled smile.





	Nothing Like Fairy Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meru/gifts).



> You had me at "he's like a Disney princess surrounded by woodland critters" and I just went from there.

There were some things Maeve had known about mages. These were the same things all warriors knew about mages, of course, because everybody knew what mages were like. They commanded lightning and fire, they spoke with booming voices that might as well have echoed straight from another plane and when you displeased them, they would make your blood boil in your veins with nothing but a sharp look.

In a nutshell: Maeve had been quite happy that the Duchy of Lakeholm was of little interest to mages and she would have been even happier to go her entire life without meeting one, thank you very much. Call her picky but she was very particular about the non-boiling state of her blood.

Then their Duke – wonderful man, but full of bad ideas – decided he would be taking the shortcut through Swann’s Woods to visit his sister’s lands and of course you couldn’t pass through that enchanted forest without a nature mage to keep the trees from trying – and succeeding – to eat you alive.

Thus, they had been joined by Rodric.

Rodric, who was… Well…

“He’s very magey,” she told her best friend doubtfully, eyeing the mage who was sitting one campfire away and feeding pieces of his stew to what was beyond doubt the most adorable fox Maeve had ever seen. She hadn’t even known foxes this cute and bushy-tailed existed outside of kitschy paintings.

As if to add insult to injury, an equally cute sparrow was sitting on his shoulder.

Reality just happened to come in myriad flavors of disappointing, it was a fact of life.

“I guess,” Glenn responded, sounding just as doubtful. Maeve didn’t hold it against her; they had both been expecting more boiling blood and less talking to woodland critters.

Maeve took off her helmet and ran her fingers through her sensibly short red hair. She put down the helmet and propped a foot on it. Elbow on her knee and chin cupped in her hand, she went back to watching the mage.

He didn’t react to the scrutiny; he never faltered in his earnest conversation with the animals. Maybe he didn’t notice, or more likely, it was beneath his notice. She wanted to believe he simply liked to have her eyes on him but there was that pesky problem with reality and disappointment, so Maeve did her best to brush that wishful thought aside.

Glenn started to clean her bloody sword and Maeve reluctantly followed her example, propping up her mace on her knee so she could pick bloody pieces of bone out of it. The smashing of bandit skulls was the easiest part but bandits were a pain to clean up after. She almost missed the forest and the murderous trees, at least there hadn’t been any need to clean up after themselves in there; the trees took care of all human scum that entered Swann’s Woods.

“Not much like the ones in the stories, though,” Glenn muttered, which was the kind of understatement that was to be expected of Glenn.

To be fair, Rodric was very magey, just not in the way of the stories about terrifying evil mages who had to be taken down by valiant, fearless knights. He was… Maeve’s eyes found the mage again, her blood and bone-splattered mace forgotten. He looked ethereal, there was nothing else to it. Lanky like she could snap him in half with a hand – not that this was noteworthy by itself, Maeve could do that with most men and had proven it many times over -  and with a shimmer of starlight in gentle brown eyes framed by wiry black curls that looked so soft she ached to run her fingers through them. Yes, starlight eyes. Rodric made her want to get poetic.

“I guess,” Maeve admitted reluctantly.

Maeve was damn sure she was a valiant, fearless knight. In fact, she was the best knight in her lord’s service, she had the most kills to prove it. There was nothing wrong with her, it was just Rodric who refused to play by the terrifying mage script.

Glenn jabbed her hard in the side. “Now that we’ve left the forest behind, he could leave any day.”

Maeve nodded, teeth digging hard into her bottom lip. “I know!” she snapped and it was too loud – loud enough that it diverted Rodric’s attention from his conversation with the fox and the flowers he was now braiding into a chain that shimmered faintly with a pale light in the dusk.

He looked up, dark starlight eyes on her, curious and concerned and so gentle as if he were concerned for her in particular, and Maeve felt her face burn hot.

Cursing under her breath, she went back to picking pieces of bandit skull out of her mace.

“You know,” Glenn said, sounding mercilessly cheerful, “it would help if you _talked_ to him.”

She snorted. Talk to him. Right. Glenn was full of bad ideas, just like the Duke.

 

The next day, as she rode at her lord’s side, she learned the mage planned to leave them once they reached the next proper town.

That gave her four days to… well, certainly not to talk to him. Because that would be foolish and she knew exactly how it would end. Rodric talked with animals and wore flowers in his hair and Maeve had been picking bandit’s teeth out of her hair after that battle yesterday.

That night, the mage sat alone at his campfire again. When he abandoned it for a moment to vanish into the woods, she dropped a pouch with the teeth in his place.

Mages used them for spells, right? Bones and teeth and blood? The stories couldn’t be _completely_ wrong.

She didn’t have the nerve to stay and find out whether he liked her present, and she had troop movements to plan anyway.

That night, she dreamed of bathing in flowers and of a gentle voice that held nothing but kindness.

It was on the following day that their scouts ran into orcs, only a handful of men returning more dead than alive. They had been a dozen when they set out.

The Duke had his troops pause and their leeches swarmed the hastily set up cots, doing what little they could for men who would be dying from poison if the blood loss didn’t get them first.

Maeve paced between the cots, driven by nothing short of helpless fury.

There was a dark-haired figure in green robes amidst the red smocks of the leeches but today, Maeve had no eyes for the mage, only for the men who wouldn’t have to be dying now if she had…

“Please don’t blame yourself.”

She whirled around at the sound of the gentle voice behind her, glaring down at the man who was half a head shorter than her even counting the sparrow that had made a nest of his hair. “Don’t tell me what to feel, mage!” she snapped.

He didn’t get angry or bristle or even turn away, Rodric just kept looking at her with the same curious concern he had shown two nights ago at the campfire. “Would you like to walk with me?”

“No.” She exhaled sharply. “But if I stay here any longer I’ll go mad.”

They left the leeches' bay behind, then the hastily set up camp altogether. There wasn’t really anywhere to go, there was nothing but grassy hills to every side of the camp, so Rodric steered them towards a hill that looked like every other hill to Maeve’s eyes.

He was a quiet man, she had noticed that already, but she still savored the companionable silence. There was nothing tense or awkward about this silence; it felt soothing.

“I apologize if I was presumptuous,” he said once the noise of the camp had quietened to a distant hum, “I didn’t mean to be dismissive of your feelings. I understand you are upset, I just wanted to comfort you.” Rodric shrugged, giving her a sheepish little grin. “I guess I’m better at talking to animals than people.” He had dimples when he smiled, and if her mood hadn’t been so glum still, Maeve would have appreciated them far more. It was the first time he looked just like a man to her, not like a mage.

“Why were you with the leeches? Are you a healer?”

He tucked his hands into one of the many pockets of his robe and pulled out an amulet, starting to fiddle with its long chain as they kept walking. “No. That is, not a magical healer. I know the properties of herbs, which makes me useful enough to the leeches, but I have no healing magic.”

That didn’t really explain why he had been there, Maeve thought to herself. They did have real leeches with the troops, after all. She just kept watching him expectantly. Even with her mind preoccupied, it wasn’t much of a hardship to look at Rodric.

“I…” His bony fingers kept getting more tangled up in the chain. “I just wanted to help.”

Her steps faltered. “Oh.”

The mage was beautiful and frail in a way not many men were in the camp, not to mention cleaner than most of them, but it wasn’t what had caught Maeve’s eye, and the truth of it slammed her in the face all over again right in this very inconvenient moment.

She turned her face away and picked up her pace, downright stomping now as if the grass beneath her feet had committed a personal slight against her.

Rodric was kind. That was the first thing she had noticed about him. Not to say that her comrades-in-arms were brutes but there was a gentleness to him which warriors couldn’t permit themselves, at least not out in the field. Rodric though, Rodric had returned from his first forage into Swann’s Woods with an injured squirrel and all the camp had been expecting macabre horrors to come. Instead, he had spent the next week nursing it back to health.

Rodric, she realized now, had been helping the leeches after the fight with the bandits, too.

“You’re going to hunt down the orcs, aren’t you?” he asked suddenly. His brows were furrowed.

She frowned right back. “Of course. My lord won’t let this stand, and he shouldn’t.”

He looked as if he wished to argue but didn’t. “I know I have no right to ask anything of you but would you make me a promise anyway?”

Her brows furrowed. “That depends on the promise.”

“Take care.” He looked down at his hands again. He had curled the full length of the chain around his fingers. “I don’t want it to be you on the leech’s cot next time.”

They had reached the crest of the hill and while Maeve just stood there feeling a little awkward, Rodric sank to his knees. He had found a patch of wildflowers to kneel in because of course he would, Maeve shouldn’t have expected anything else.

He brushed his hands over the slightly withered flowers, whispering Words of Power Maeve didn’t understand but whose hum she felt in her bones. Wilting petals returned to vivid beauty right in front of Maeve’s eyes. More flowers popped out of the ground and matured to full bloom while she stood there and watched.

Rodric picked the most vibrant of them all, a pink daisy, and still kneeling, he offered it to Maeve. “It’s not the teeth of my enemies but I hope it will do.”

Maeve snatched the flower from his hand. She could feel her face burn even worse than it had the other night. “I’ll bring you a head tonight!” she blurted out.

Rodric gave her another dazzling smile.

 

Glenn talked Maeve out of bringing him a head but she did bring Rodric a pouch full of things which looked magical to her eyes; amulets and runes, flasks with mysterious glowing contents and some rolls of parchment spelled closed.

Still wearing her blood-splattered armor, her mace slung over her shoulder, she walked straight up to the pretty aethereal mage and thrust the leather pouch at his chest.

“For you,” she said, feeling dozens of curious eyes on them, and stomped away to get cleaned up before the whispers started.

“Looks like you’re talking to him,” Glenn whispered later, when they laid in their bedrolls.

Maeve rolled her eyes in the dark. “Oh shut up or I’m switching tents with Goldie. She sings dwarven drinking songs in her sleep.”

Glenn shut up but she kept radiating smugness.

 

They rode on.

Tomorrow, they would reach the town they would be parting ways with Rodric.

Today, Maeve’s stomach felt queasy when she watched him and queasier when she thought of never seeing him again.

He had been with them for almost two weeks and yesterday was the first proper conversation she’d had with him. Glenn had been right all along, she should have talked to him while she had the chance.

She got another chance when she overheard the mage speak to her lord during lunch, asking for leave to detour to a nearby bog and gather potions ingredients. Predictably so after yesterday’s attack, his request was denied.

“My lord, I’ll go with the mage,” she rushed to offer as soon as Rodric had left with slumped shoulders. “No harm will come to him under my protection.”

Duke Arden’s wizened face lit up with a knowing smile. “I thought you might say that, Dame Maeve.”

She scowled away her embarrassment; was there anyone in their company who hadn’t noticed? Well, maybe she could have been subtler last night with the trinkets.

She curtsied as graciously as her heavy plate armor permitted. “Thank you, my lord.”

 

Rodric, Maeve learned, liked swamps - and when she said he liked them, she didn’t mean the kind of casual interest many nature lovers could muster for the plant and animal life in a bog, or for the eerie atmosphere it held on a foggy night.

No, Rodric well and truly loved them.

This was the second hour of him talking nonstop, pointing out every weed and bug they came across.

Why had she ever thought the mage the silent sort?

He was beaming as he walked this way and that to gather his herbs or coo over yet another insect, Maeve had long since gallantly offered to lead his horse along with her own so he could explore unburdened.

He was adorable, and that godsforsaken sparrow of his had stayed behind at camp.

“I never thanked you for accompanying me, did I?” Rodric asked when he returned to Maeve’s side, again weaving flowers into a chain. Again, they were glowing under his fingers.

“That’s not necessary. Just doing my duty.” She hefted her mace up. “And hoping for some violence,” she admitted. And his company, which she couldn’t possibly admit to.

He tucked the flower chain into the wide sleeve of his robe and smiled that dimpled smile Maeve was growing so very fond of. “I have the swamp’s protection but all the same I would rather have yours. ”

“What’s the swamp going to do for you?” she scoffed. “Swallow your attackers whole?”

He shook his head slightly and reclaimed the reins of his horse. “It wouldn’t swallow them. Suck them in is more like it.”

“What an ugly death. I’ll stick to my mace.”

“It suits you well.”

Maeve sucked in a sharp breath. “Does it?” She shifted her grip on the mace’s shaft and straightened in her plate mail, knowing she would make a striking figure. Ever since Rodric joined them, she had been meticulous in scrubbing away the blood and grime every night. “I can kill a man with a single blow.”

“My Words of Power make barren fields grow.”

There was a smile on her face, she realized. As she became aware of it, it widened. “I once stood alone against a dozen orcs to protect my lord’s baby heiress. I still carry the scars but they didn’t stand a chance and now their chief’s weapon is mine.” She patted her trusty mace. It had been worth each and every scar, it was her second-best friend right after Glenn and far less obnoxious.

“You saw me whisper the Old Trees to sleep. They are angry but my Words calm them.”

Maeve wondered if he knew different Words to stir their fury but it was such a nice afternoon and she didn’t want to think too closely about murderous trees doing what they did best.

“Why don’t you stay with us?” She felt herself flushing when Rodric remained silent. “What I’m trying to say is, we will have to pass the forest again on the way back and it’d be easier to take you along than search for another mage. There aren’t many of your kind this far east.”

Rodric gave another shake of his head. “I don’t like cities. I have little power there. I’d rather wait for the Duke’s return tending to fields and orchards, if I must wait.”

“There would be fields and orchards closer to the capital.” If she had been any less of a trained warrior, she would have cringed at her own words. How desperate she must sound to the mage. It was utterly humiliating. Alright, maybe she was cringing a little.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” he said softly. He moved a little closer, shoulders brushing with every leisure step they took. There were tiny crinkles around his eyes when he smiled. “But in truth, I came east because I heard of Thorne River running dry. From the stories that reached me, it sounds like a classic case of water sprites having been forced into an enchanted sleep.”

Maeve grimaced. “Water sprites. Of course.”

He laughed. It startled her with the suddenness and because he sounded so normal when he laughed, and then it startled her again with the warmth that flooded her. “I’m terribly sorry,” Rodric said, still grinning so widely and not sounding sorry at all.

She snorted. “I’m sure you are.” Another scoff. “Water sprites.”

“But if it’s the most likely explanation.”

“I’ll just have to trust you with that, mage.”

“You can.” She blinked at him, brows crinkled, and he ducked his head slightly under her scrutiny. “Trust me, that is.”

Maeve thought of all the tales she had heard about boiling blood and lightning bolts and she thought of Rodric’s long, slender fingers digging into the earth until life sprouted from barren soil. They had feasted like kings every night while he traveled with them. Most of all, though, she thought of the hill and the pink daisy he gave her. Her hand went to her chest plate, where she wore it against her heart. It would be terribly crushed by now.

“I do.” She licked her dry, chapped lips. That was the easy part, if she was to be honest with herself. Rodric was easy to trust. Rodric was gentle and kind. “But do you trust me?” she asked, careful to keep her tone light and casual, and her eyes on the path. All paths were treacherous in a swamp, there was nothing wrong with being cautious.

Rodric halted. He waited patiently for Maeve to catch on and take two steps back to return to his side. Only then did he say, “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are.”

They stood close, though not nose to nose. Rodric was even shorter without the sparrow on his head, though in truth this only made him of average height. It wasn’t his fault Maeve was very tall but it wasn’t her fault either. She rather liked it, how he tilted his head up to meet her eyes. She licked her lips. Was this when she was supposed to kiss him and get herself zapped with lightning if he didn’t like it? It was so much simpler between warriors, between friends, when it didn’t mean anything beyond a quick tumble.

Rodric’s smile started to wither and panic seized her. She cupped the back of his head with her gauntleted hand and leaned down, all but smashing her lips into his in her haste to act before his smile died altogether.

Rodric made a sweet little noise of surprise that turned into a laugh and she was laughing against his lips too and then they were not laughing anymore at all, for they were completely caught up in their kiss.

Maeve felt heat burn through her veins like the magic in the stories, it left her light-headed and almost drunk in its wake. They broke apart only to gasp for air and then they were kissing again, kissing and laughing and kissing again.

Unnoticed by either, their horses wandered off.

Rodric pulled off her helmet and dropped it carelessly into the mud. The enchanted flower chain spilled from his sleeve, bleeding magic into the ground.

They stole another kiss.

Something snaked around Maeve’s left leg and tugged. She leaped back – or tried to, anyway, the thing around her leg held on tight – and bellowed a war cry, already reaching for her mace before she realized just what was entrapping her.

They stood amidst flower-speckled vines sprouting out of the ground, fresh and strong and beautiful and studded with thorns as long as her pinky. They were still glimmering with freshly cast magic. Nestled among the heart of the vines was one of the flower chains Rodric had been working on, now withered and dead but still unmistakable.

Maeve hooked her mace back into place and shot the mage a very unimpressed look.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah. Yes. Sorry about that.” He murmured Words of Power in a language she didn’t understand and the vines released both of them, withdrawing like a chastened puppy.

“You’re a very strange man,” she said, “even for a mage.” That was an understatement worthy of Glenn and she decided to bring a safe distance between herself and the still-growing magical plant. She shot it a dirty look, too. She hadn’t planned on being done with kissing Rodric anytime soon.

Rodric followed her. He tucked another, dangling flower chain back into his sleeve. “We should fetch our horses.”

She coughed. “We should.” They hadn’t wandered off far and really, Maeve found herself in not much of a hurry to fetch them.

“Or we could lose them instead,” he added mildly. He waited until Maeve was frowning at him to explain, “We might have to stay the night. It would be dread luck.”

Maeve’s brows arched even as she felt a little flutter in her belly. Rodric’s smile was showing his dimples again. She stepped towards him and let herself be drawn into another kiss. “How terrible.”

His fingers slipped through her short hair, tangling it as if he were braiding more of his flower chains. “And then, in the morning, I could tell you more about Thorne River. The river head lays deep in the mountains – lawless lands. I’d need a companion, were I to try and wake the river sprites.”

The flutter in her belly turned into a whirlwind. “Preferably one that isn’t feathery and half the size of my fist.”

Rodric nodded, as solemn as the mages in the stories. “Preferably.”

It was a whimsical desire to follow Rodric on some ridiculous magical quest when she had sworn herself to her lord. Yet the lands of her lord’s sister were amidst these suffering from Thorne River running dry and he had great faith in Rodric. It wouldn’t be hard to get his blessings, or at least not impossible.

“That’s something to talk about once we’re in town,” she said and could immediately read the disappointment in the mage’s eyes. A breath and she found herself surging onwards almost without giving herself permission. “Because I’ll need my lord’s leave. And…” She clamped her mouth shut before she could say anything else overhasty and ridiculous.

She was a hardened knight. She should be better than stammering and blushing over a man like a maiden.

“It’s something to discuss in town,” she repeated.

The left corner of Rodric’s mouth curled upwards. “In town then,” he agreed.

The magical vine plant… monster… thing gave an unholy battle cry that plants shouldn’t give. Maeve only glanced at it for the shortest moment, taking note that it had grown to the size of a hut, before her eyes returned to Rodric. He didn’t look concerned, so neither was she, and he was a far more pleasing sight than bloodthirsty plants.

So maybe she was a little disgusted that bloodthirsty plants were now a part of her life but Rodric’s dimples were awfully cute. All things considered, it was a small price to pay.

He placed a hand on her hip and drew her close, asking, “Will I have to wait until town to get another kiss, too?”

She answered his question with her lips against his.


End file.
